


5 ways John Laurens met Alexander Hamilton

by wobblyheadeddollcaper



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 10:23:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5493794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wobblyheadeddollcaper/pseuds/wobblyheadeddollcaper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says on the tin. Includes musical canon, history canon, modern AU, modern college AU, and lady hamilfans AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Showtime

Laurens only remembers it in flashes, pieces of memory he grasps at afterwards. He recalls the satisfaction of challenging Burr's endless equivocation, and the curiosity about the stranger who had chimed in. Those huge, strikingly intelligent eyes had turned towards him, and he had said… something, and Alexander had joined them. The moment he met Alexander should have been blazoned across his brain, but instead he looks up a week later to find he has a new dearest friend and isn’t quite sure how he acquired him.

“Oh, I knew we’d be friends,” Alexander says blithely. “It was in the way you looked at me.” Laurens frowns, trying to remember.

“I can’t remember what I first thought of you," Laurens apologises. "Too many beers, perhaps. Now it’s all overlaid by what I know about you.”

“And what do you know?”        

“You’re brave. You’re smart. We hold the same principles and we both leap before we look." He grins. "We’re going to set this whole town alight, you and me.”

“I should buy Burr a drink,” Alexander says, smiling and looking unaccountably embarrassed. “Without him we wouldn’t have met.”

“He’d probably be more grateful if you avoided him for a week.” Laurens says, throwing his arm round Alexander’s shoulders. “Let me buy you a drink instead, and we can talk about your plan for a militia. I got some ideas.”


	2. Aide

His father sends him to be Washington’s aide-de-camp, and John goes. He’s part of a bigger deal, a public show of Henry Laurens’ support for Washington, a pair of Laurens eyes on the campaign, a boy with a man’s name to give him consequence. He needs desperately to live up to his position. Most of the other aides-de-camp are a little older, promoted for promise or merit. Alexander Hamilton is younger even than John, and there on merit alone. They waste a whole five minutes in wary politeness to each other before Alexander speaks.

“So what do you think about slavery?” John tells him exactly what he thinks, and then they get dinner, still talking, and the next morning his throat is raw and they work together in perfect amiability.

Later John confesses his initial resentment – how he was envious of Alexander’s talent, his unquestioned merit, his war experience – and Alexander lets out a shocked bark of laughter.

“No, I was envious of you!”

“What-“ John laughs incredulously. “What have I ever done with my life that could possibly make you jealous.”

“Your background, your time in Europe.” Alexander looks away. “Your father.”

John blinks. The world reorients, and he sees for the first time the nervous energy in Alexander’s frame not as a gift of nature, but the keyed-up reaction of a man to a world he has always had to fight.


	3. #protest

So the cops haul them in, and John ends up squeezed in next to some dude with a beard, a ponytail and a loud fucking mouth, who keeps hollering legalese at the increasingly pissed-off arresting officers.

“Dude, I got hit in the head, lower the volume,” he pleads. He’s got what feels like an egg-sized bump near his temple, but he hasn’t blacked out. He’s been on the frontlines of enough protests and caught enough attention that he’s not particularly worried.

“And you’re beating up minors!” the guy yells.

“I ain’t a fuckin’ minor,” John says wearily.

“Sorry, man, but you don’t look old enough to shave, and I’m guessing they didn’t check your ID.”

“Eh, stick it to them however you can,” John says magnanimously, and holds out his hand. “John.”

“Alex Hamilton, legal observer.”

“Hey, my bail should be turning up soon, you want out?”

“I could update the blog,” Alex says, looking tempted. “But nah, should stay and observe.”

“Oh, that won’t be a problem,” John says, and just then Lafayette sashays in, Adrienne on his arm, and bails out every last protestor.

“Who is he?” Alex hisses in John’s ear.

“Dude, that’s Lafayette!” John looks at him incredulously. “The rapper? Married to the Marquise? Are you new?”

Alex draws himself up. “Yes, actually. Immigrated a couple of years back.”

“Oh. Sorry, no offense. He’s basically crazy rich and crazy famous. Come on, let’s go get our phones.” He takes another look at Alex, whose thumbs are already twitching, and makes a snap judgement. “I’ll buy you a drink, we can talk about the next protest.”

“Sounds nice,” Alex says, and oh crap, that smile turns him from passably attractive to far too hot for John to ignore.


	4. ham4ham

They meet in the Ham4Ham lottery line. It’s one of the few days where the cast doesn’t come out to perform, and the guy behind Alexa raises his voice a little too loudly to complain.

“Hey, dickhead, where did you get the idea anyone owed you constant entertainment? Is the sheer superfluity of free shit dulling your mind, or are you a fucking three-year old who needs mom to bounce him up and down to avoid throwing a tantrum?”

“They work hard, they deserve the occasional night off,” Joanne adds, and Alexa – though they have never met, and won’t learn each other’s names for some minutes – turns and points at her.

“Thank you, yes! And one more thing-“

Neither of them get tickets that night. They do get coffee, which leads to shots, which leads to Hamilton karaoke at Joanne’s place at a probably-unreasonable hour of the night.

“We sh’ld do sm’thn,” Alexa slurs. “I’m no’ throwing awa my shot!” she adds, singing vaguely in key.

“Shld – politics,” Joanne says vaguely. “Wha’ would Hamilton do. Fuck up Trump.”

“Yessss,” Alexa says, sitting bolt upright. “Tha’ motherfucker.”

Hamilfans against Trump becomes a popular tumblr becomes the source of a couple of actual rallies which results in Alexa getting invited to a grassroots Democratic party organising group and, well, things kind of spiral outwards from there. Joanne is her ‘date’ to the Democratic primaries, and then her actual, no-quote-marks date to the announcement of the election result.

They buy Hamilton tickets as a joint anniversary present to each other.


	5. College

John gets the all-students email about the GSA club and debates himself for hours whether he should attend. He’s not at home anymore, no one knows him from Adam: but what if they do, what if word gets around, he might want to join the football team, it’s not really anyone’s business but his.

In the end he looks around his empty dorm room, thinks about the consequences of being ruled by fear, hopes that no one notices and goes. His heart is in his throat every step of the way.

It’s worth it. He doesn’t speak to anyone much, not on his first time, but he leaves feeling less like a citizen of nowhere.

Then Alex turns up and everything he’d hoped about staying unnoticed goes out of the window. Alex gets noticed like it’s his fucking job, not least by John. He can see Aaron Burr noticing as well – they’re both pretty quiet, John and Aaron, and there’s something in there about how opposites attract – but then Alex asks if either of them wants to help out with an editorial and John says yes, and Aaron shakes his head and mumbles something about a heavy class load, and that’s it.

He’s not just saying yes to spend time with Alex, it’s for a good cause. He gets practice at getting noticed (‘that guy holding Alex’s bag’, ‘that guy who pulled Alex off Tom,’ ‘that guy Alex pulled off Charles Lee’). John gets more comfortable in his skin, and though he’s never going to wear pride colors outside a parade, he does learn how to hold Alex’s hand in public, learns how to keep holding on even when someone is looking.


End file.
